My Best Friend

It surprises many non-gamers as well as some gamers that players can make good friends online. After all, how do you really get to know someone when everyone is pretending to be someone else? Part of the answer is that the pretense of pretending to be someone else allows many individuals to shed the guises they wear in real life, and become more of who they really are. A fuller exploration of the reasons why strong bonds form in MMORPGs can be found in this presentation. (http://www.nickyee.com/hub/relationships/intro.html)

When players were asked whether the person they would consider to be their best friend was someone they met online in the game, 7% of male players and 19% of female players indicated that this was the case. The age differences were quite striking. While male players across all ages tended to show a stable 5-9% range, female players revealed a striking age difference. The prevalence of this phenomenon is highest among 12-17 year old female players and then declines until it hits a trough among 29-35 year old female players and then rises slightly among female players over 35 years of age.

This article was posted on the Daedalus Project on May 2, 2003 5:35 PM.